What to Do with a Non-Performing Private Utility?

2025-08-06

Water companies used to be public utilities for a reason - they are a monopoly.

A bit like railways, power companies, fibre broadband, and anything else delivered by some sort of infrastructure grid that requires maintenance.

Now it is true that to some extent such grids could and can be opened up to competition, but the principle remains.

But in Mrs Thatcher's time, the dead hand of public ownership was deemed to be unresponsive to the needs of the public, and the era of great privatisations began where big monopolies (eg: British Gas) were auctioned off at attractive prices. Private ownership would solve the problems!

But private ownership didn't do much better that state ownership (although the record is patchy).

Water companies in particular seem to be hit by the complete disconnect between the needs of shareholders on the one hand and consumers on the other - the old problem of monopoly wasn't addressed but cemented in place - we just couldn't blame the government any more.]

So what to do with an ailing private monopoly that still has its clutches on a vital but decaying supply infrastructure?

We simply need to align shareholder motivation with customer motivation.